When comparing Amazon Kindle Store vs Barnes & Noble NOOK Books, the Slant community recommends Amazon Kindle Store for most people. In the question“What is the best eBook store?”Amazon Kindle Store is ranked 1st while Barnes & Noble NOOK Books is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Amazon Kindle Store is:

Amazon being as large as they are can often undercut the pricing of eBooks. This is not always the case as a lot of eBooks have their prices set by the publisher. this is called agency pricing. But on non-agency eBooks Amazon is often the cheapest store.

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Pros

Pro

Often has lower prices compared to other eBook retailers

Amazon being as large as they are can often undercut the pricing of eBooks. This is not always the case as a lot of eBooks have their prices set by the publisher. this is called agency pricing. But on non-agency eBooks Amazon is often the cheapest store.

Pro

Self publishing

Amazon allows for users to self publish eBooks and audiobooks.

Pro

App for almost every platform

Amazon offers the Kindle app for just about every platform. So far there are apps for Android, iOS, Blackberry, PC, Mac, and Windows Phone 7. Conspicuously the Linux platform is absent from that list.

Pro

Lots of 100% discounts

It's easy to get a lot of books for free if you use this IFTTT recipe.

Pro

Kindle Daily Deals

Amazon offers discounted eBooks daily for their "Kindle Daily Deals". The eBooks can be as much as 80% off the normal retail price. Though often the eBooks on offer of of low quality or unheard of titles.

Pro

Send eBook as gift [US only]

The Amazon Kindle store allows for users to send eBooks as a gift to any e-mail address of their choosing along with a custom message, though for now this feature is US only.

Pro

Kindle Owners' Lending Library

The Kindle Owners' Lending Library is a feature of Amazon Prime, a service that costs $99 a year that includes such features as free two day shipping on Amazon orders and a membership to their video and music services. The Kindle Owners' Lending Library has more than 600,000 books users can borrow (one at a time) with no time limitation.

Pro

Offer optional subscription service

Amazon offers an unlimited (actually it is pretty limited) eBook service similar to what netflix offer for movies. Though the selection is on the smaller side compared to their regular eBook store.

Pro

Send eBooks as gift

The NOOK store allows users to send eBooks as gifts to their friends and family.

Pro

Self publishing

B&N offers a way for users to self publish their eBooks to the NOOK eBook store, the service is called NOOK Press.

Pro

NOOK app

B&N offers a NOOK app for Android, iOS and Windows 8 in their respective stores. This allows user to shop and read their eBooks natively on those operating systems.

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Cons

Con

All eBooks are in a proprietary format

Unlike other eBook stores, Amazon does not offer .epub's (a free and open eBook standard) for their Kindle devices. What they do offer is a proprietary format that only will work on their own Kindle devices. Sadly this creates user lock in as there is no way to take those digital titles to another reader without stripping the DRM from them (something that may or may not be illegal in certain countries) and converting to a format that does work on said other devices.

Con

No legacy Windows app or Mac app

While B&N use to offer a PC and Mac app for the desktop, they pulled support officially in 2013.

Con

Higher prices then competition

Part of the reason B&N is having so much trouble with the NOOK brand currently and most likely part of its decision to separate itself from it by spinning it into its own company is that since the demolishing of agency pricing they are unable to compete on prices.

Con

B&N not confident in NOOK brand

B&N will be spinning its NOOK division into a separate company, which does not show much faith in their own brand. What's worse is that this show of uncertainty of wanting to separate from the failing device and it's eBook store will only just further distance the customers from the NOOK. Being that their eBooks have a special DRM scheme that does not allow their .epubs to work in other device, current users better hope this new company does not fold or they will be out of their entire NOOK eBook library.

Con

Uses a special DRM on their eBooks, any eBook purchased from B&N is not Adobe Digital Edition compliant

While B&N does use and read .epub on their devices, any eBook purchased from the B&N eBook store will not be able to be used in other .epub readers unless the DRM is stripped from said eBook.

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